week one.therealljidol.trust everyone, but cut the cards.
She didn’t notice him. At first. But once she had seen him, she couldn’t help but notice. He was dealing at a blackjack table. A rather lone table, just this side of the bar and that side of the casino floor. She wasn’t sure she had taken notice because of the noticeable lack of players, or because the absence of warm bodies at his table made him more noticeable. And, she noted to herself, those things weren’t as similar as they sounded when she whispered the sentence out loud. Negative space and all of that. It was that very kind of pondering which had her therapist recommending she get out more.
Before spying him through the cacophony of lights, bells, muffled human voices, across the noise and endless tide of people she couldn’t say why she was there. After she saw him, she decided she was there because of him.
The Bellevue. Hotel and casino. Retro paint job and beautiful people, for the most part. There was a marked, thin edging of broken human beings seemingly containing the glittering within. A kind of organic geode. This was her observation as she sat on the perimeter, playing a quarter machine. The game had a name, a theme, but she didn’t care about that, just enjoyed feeding bills into the hungry slot, no credit or debit for her, and playing her hand out. Single bets, multiple bets, one line, every line, it didn’t matter. She didn’t expect to win but there was something immediate in the way in which the machine grabbed onto her money and tugged.
And that brought her back to the most obvious question, why then was she there. Not that anyone was inquiring but she had been her own best company for nearly a decade’s time and so she was asking herself. Chiding herself really. Had she booked the hotel room because she wanted something to tell Dr. Jonson at her next appointment. Perhaps. The casino was less than an hour’s drive away from home and felt eminently social in that she could spend the weekend there in isolated anonymity.
He had begun to deal a blackjack solitaire hand.
She caught his eye. It was inevitable as she had been openly staring at him for long moments while she sipped at her freebie drink. The alcohol watered down by the melting ice cubes.
He was tall and thinly lean, broad-shouldered with a finely shaped head. Close cropped hair. A soul patch. And what appeared to be tattoos on his neck, fetchingly incongruous with the formal dress wear the dealers of that particular casino wore. Once he caught her eye, he didn’t look away, but tipped his head in her direction, arching one brow and indicating his empty table to her with a practiced and magical gesture he made with both hands.
She rose, a puppet on strings, hiked her purse strap up onto her shoulder and walked over. She neither noticed nor cared that her machine still had bets waiting to be placed. An elderly, well-coifed woman wearing a silk smoking jacket quickly slid into the vacated seat in front of the one-armed bandit.
“Good evening,” he said with a questioning pause to be filled with her name.
“Gloria White,” she answered."And is it evening?" She looked around the windowless room the size of an airplane hangar.
“It is evening, Mrs. White. I’m, strangely enough, Mr. Black. Please sit at any of these chairs.”
She sat at the bar stool directly across the felt from him. He shuffled an opened deck. She threw a small bill on the table, he looked at her politely and she turned sideways on the chair to dig into her bag, then placed a much larger bill on top.
He took the cash, exchanged it for chips. He then used a mesmerizing maneuver to uncello a new deck of cards, the slab of them sliding into his palm, the box discarded. He was skilled. An in hand riffle shuffle and a table shuffle with a cascading finish. She found it hypnotic.
“This game feels more personal than the machines,” she said in an attempt to be conversational.
“So it should. I’m not a machine and you must pay attention.”
“It’s so," she fished for the adjective, "interactive.”
“But that makes you nervous?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I thought that was going to be your point.”
“It does make me nervous,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure why. How odd is that?”
“Not so odd.” He was waiting for an indication from her.
“I don’t know the game very well,” she said apologetically, “outside of my own kitchen table, of course.”
“You play blackjack at your kitchen table?”
“No. Solitaire.”
He nodded. “Of course. Let me inform the floor supervisor that you’ll be taking a free gaming lesson.”
“Nothing’s free, Mr. Black.” She had meant this to sound flirtatious and realized in the silence that followed that she was sixty-one years old and he could be ageless for how much younger than she he was.
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. Then raised a hand to a man standing in the exact center of the room. The man approached. Her dealer said, “I’m offering Mrs. White a gaming lesson. No charge.”
“No charge,” the man agreed, gazing at her before allowing his attention to be caught by a young couple seemingly arguing by a bank of Wheel of Fortune machines. He beelined towards them.
“I’m not, actually, a mrs anymore. I’m a widow,” she said and drained her glass. She shook her head, suddenly laughing. The sound was rueful . “I know why I’m here now. My husband? He didn’t hedge his bets. Shopped at the Farmer’s market, non-GMO for him. Walked three miles every morning, rain or shine. Didn’t smoke or drink to excess. Worked hard at his job.”
“What was his trade?”
“He was a commercial fisherman.”
“A noble profession.”
“He died an ignoble, painful death from cancer of the joints." Her voice was accusatory. "Riddled with tumours and crying out to a god who had betrayed him.”
The dealer nodded. The shuffled deck was neatly in front of him, his hands folded behind, knuckles resting on the table. “Would you cut the cards?”
She reached over and split the deck into thirds. “A symbolic gesture. I even cut the cards when I deal a hand of Solitaire.”
“You don’t believe it makes a difference.”
“No. I don’t. Not in the end. The house always wins.”
Before spying him through the cacophony of lights, bells, muffled human voices, across the noise and endless tide of people she couldn’t say why she was there. After she saw him, she decided she was there because of him.
The Bellevue. Hotel and casino. Retro paint job and beautiful people, for the most part. There was a marked, thin edging of broken human beings seemingly containing the glittering within. A kind of organic geode. This was her observation as she sat on the perimeter, playing a quarter machine. The game had a name, a theme, but she didn’t care about that, just enjoyed feeding bills into the hungry slot, no credit or debit for her, and playing her hand out. Single bets, multiple bets, one line, every line, it didn’t matter. She didn’t expect to win but there was something immediate in the way in which the machine grabbed onto her money and tugged.
And that brought her back to the most obvious question, why then was she there. Not that anyone was inquiring but she had been her own best company for nearly a decade’s time and so she was asking herself. Chiding herself really. Had she booked the hotel room because she wanted something to tell Dr. Jonson at her next appointment. Perhaps. The casino was less than an hour’s drive away from home and felt eminently social in that she could spend the weekend there in isolated anonymity.
He had begun to deal a blackjack solitaire hand.
She caught his eye. It was inevitable as she had been openly staring at him for long moments while she sipped at her freebie drink. The alcohol watered down by the melting ice cubes.
He was tall and thinly lean, broad-shouldered with a finely shaped head. Close cropped hair. A soul patch. And what appeared to be tattoos on his neck, fetchingly incongruous with the formal dress wear the dealers of that particular casino wore. Once he caught her eye, he didn’t look away, but tipped his head in her direction, arching one brow and indicating his empty table to her with a practiced and magical gesture he made with both hands.
She rose, a puppet on strings, hiked her purse strap up onto her shoulder and walked over. She neither noticed nor cared that her machine still had bets waiting to be placed. An elderly, well-coifed woman wearing a silk smoking jacket quickly slid into the vacated seat in front of the one-armed bandit.
“Good evening,” he said with a questioning pause to be filled with her name.
“Gloria White,” she answered."And is it evening?" She looked around the windowless room the size of an airplane hangar.
“It is evening, Mrs. White. I’m, strangely enough, Mr. Black. Please sit at any of these chairs.”
She sat at the bar stool directly across the felt from him. He shuffled an opened deck. She threw a small bill on the table, he looked at her politely and she turned sideways on the chair to dig into her bag, then placed a much larger bill on top.
He took the cash, exchanged it for chips. He then used a mesmerizing maneuver to uncello a new deck of cards, the slab of them sliding into his palm, the box discarded. He was skilled. An in hand riffle shuffle and a table shuffle with a cascading finish. She found it hypnotic.
“This game feels more personal than the machines,” she said in an attempt to be conversational.
“So it should. I’m not a machine and you must pay attention.”
“It’s so," she fished for the adjective, "interactive.”
“But that makes you nervous?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I thought that was going to be your point.”
“It does make me nervous,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure why. How odd is that?”
“Not so odd.” He was waiting for an indication from her.
“I don’t know the game very well,” she said apologetically, “outside of my own kitchen table, of course.”
“You play blackjack at your kitchen table?”
“No. Solitaire.”
He nodded. “Of course. Let me inform the floor supervisor that you’ll be taking a free gaming lesson.”
“Nothing’s free, Mr. Black.” She had meant this to sound flirtatious and realized in the silence that followed that she was sixty-one years old and he could be ageless for how much younger than she he was.
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. Then raised a hand to a man standing in the exact center of the room. The man approached. Her dealer said, “I’m offering Mrs. White a gaming lesson. No charge.”
“No charge,” the man agreed, gazing at her before allowing his attention to be caught by a young couple seemingly arguing by a bank of Wheel of Fortune machines. He beelined towards them.
“I’m not, actually, a mrs anymore. I’m a widow,” she said and drained her glass. She shook her head, suddenly laughing. The sound was rueful . “I know why I’m here now. My husband? He didn’t hedge his bets. Shopped at the Farmer’s market, non-GMO for him. Walked three miles every morning, rain or shine. Didn’t smoke or drink to excess. Worked hard at his job.”
“What was his trade?”
“He was a commercial fisherman.”
“A noble profession.”
“He died an ignoble, painful death from cancer of the joints." Her voice was accusatory. "Riddled with tumours and crying out to a god who had betrayed him.”
The dealer nodded. The shuffled deck was neatly in front of him, his hands folded behind, knuckles resting on the table. “Would you cut the cards?”
She reached over and split the deck into thirds. “A symbolic gesture. I even cut the cards when I deal a hand of Solitaire.”
“You don’t believe it makes a difference.”
“No. I don’t. Not in the end. The house always wins.”